The scene in the Butt Room begins with Gene denying the “accusation” and thereby attracting everyone’s suspicion and attention, and ends with Gene playing along and completely dispels the atmosphere of doubt. The way he does this is quite interesting—by admitting to the crime and acting in such an over the top manner, he gets rid of most of the doubt that the others have towards him. If the had continued to deny the charges, the others would have continued to bother him about it, since denying a charge usually raises more suspicion then making jokes about it would. This is because a person who vehemently denies an accusation probably has something to hide, and others will spot this and on some level use this to make assumptions about that person. Gene knows this and uses it both to dispel the other’s suspicion and make himself feel better, and he says, “ I had to take part in this, or risk losing control completely” (Knowles 89). He also says later, “It was going well, faint grins were appearing around the room, even the younger boy seemed to suspect that he was being ‘sincere’ about a joke, a bad mistake to make at Devon, “then I…” I only had to add, “pushed him out of the tree” and the chain of implausibility would be complete” (Knowles 90). Yet even then Gene cannot actually say the words, he cannot actually deny pushing his best friend out of the tree. He came down to the Butt Room with Brinker to make his innocence clear, but something inside of him resists that fact. This is clear proof that it is almost impossible to lie to yourself, because somewhere, deep down, you know that it is wrong. Gene cannot bring himself to say these words, but the others believe him, despite his hesitation. This scene shows the depth of Gene’s perceived friendship with Finny, how none of the others really believe that he would do something like that even though he does not actually deny it.
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